Short answer: Salcombe is expensive, so the plan is: park once, take the foot ferry to Mill Bay, spend the day on free beaches, and eat from the Pantry or the Yawl rather than the waterfront restaurants. The ferry costs about £2.50 each way and saves you a second parking charge.
Salcombe is the most polished town on this coast and the prices reflect it. A fairy cake for £4.50 and a plate of pasta for £25 both appear in reviews, and nobody visiting on a budget should be surprised by the bill. Fifty pounds is doable here, but it takes a plan rather than wandering into the first place with a view.
This is the whole strategy. Park in town — bring coins, the North Sands machine does not take cards — and take the passenger ferry across to East Portlemouth. It is around £2.50 per person each way and it drops you at Mill Bay, the best family beach here, with golden sand and a stream running beside it that keeps children busy for hours.
Driving round instead means forty-five minutes of single-track lanes and a National Trust car park that fills by eleven, then paying again. The ferry is cheaper and faster.
Once you are across, everything is free. Mill Bay and Sunny Cove are linked by a wooded path, the coast path runs out to Gara Rock, and the beaches are sheltered, shallow and calm — estuary swimming rather than surf. A five-mile loop out to Gara Rock and back on an inland path is the best walk here and costs nothing.
The Pantry Coffee House at the top of Fore Street does freshly made sandwiches at sensible prices, allows dogs inside, and has gluten-free and dairy-free options. It seats about seven, so treat it as a takeaway with a bench nearby. The Salcombe Yawl is a deli doing sandwiches, pasties and a good gluten-free range.
Take a picnic across on the ferry and you have cut the biggest cost out of the day entirely.
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